A guru on crime statistics believes progressive journalists and pundits have misled Americans by insisting crime is down under the Biden-Harris administration.
Jeffrey Anderson is the president of the American Mainstreet Initiative, a small think tank that focuses on issues “everyday Americans” care about, such as crime and immigration, inflation and the national debt. Prior to that, he was the director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which is the arm of the Department of Justice that puts out federal crime stats.
He recently penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “Contrary to Media Myth, U.S. Urban Crime Rates Are Up,” which suggested flawed FBI data hides a rise in urban-area crime since the Defund the Police movement of 2020.
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Anderson was “frustrated and yelling at the TV” when ABC Presidential Debate co-moderator David Muir cited FBI data to insist violent crime has come down “overall” in recent years when fact-checking former President Trump.
“Contrary to the fact-checkers and the debate moderator… there’s no statistically significant evidence in the best, most authoritative source that crime is dropping in America,” Anderson told Fox News Digital.
“There’s been a huge increase in urban crime from 2019, right before the summer of George Floyd and the Defund the Police movement to 2023, which are the most recent numbers, which were just released a couple weeks ago,” Anderson added. “In fact, the increase in urban crime, violent crime is [up] 40% over that period of time.”
Anderson said that if you remove simple assaults, which are considered the “least serious” of violent crimes, then data shows a 54% increase in urban areas since 2020.
“It’s a huge crime spike in our cities,” Anderson said.
Anderson believes the major uptick in urban-area violent crime is the result of major cities being controlled by left-leaning officials.
“They’ve had a very lax law enforcement philosophy… they put handcuffs on police. They’ve made it very difficult for them to do their jobs. And then the prosecution of criminals once they’re arrested has been minimal,” Anderson said.
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“And so, as a result of that, really, these are the same lax law enforcement policies we tried back in the 1960s and 70s. We’re getting the same results in our cities,” he continued. “And we know the way out, thanks to the broken windows policing we tried in the 1990s and 2000s, but we’ll see if the cities actually adopt those policies.”
Trump pushed back on Muir during the infamous debate, suggesting the FBI data was fraudulent because major cities weren’t included.
“I think the media, which is highly progressive, does not want to admit these progressive policies in our cities caused a huge crime spike. So, they’re trying to grab on to whatever numbers they can, stats they would never normally cite, like partial year, unpolished FBI figures, and try to claim that we’re seeing a decline in crime,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is put out by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the DOJ statistical agency where he used to work, proves his point.
“The FBI is not a statistical agency. The NCVS says that violent crime in our cities is up 40% from 2019, pre-George Floyd, Defund the Police to 2023,” he said.
“It does not show any statistically significant decline in violent crime either nationwide, or in our cities, over the most recent year,” he added, noting that NCVS is particularly important to understand because it includes crimes that are not reported to the police, in addition to the ones that were reported.
“That’s hugely important, especially given that most respondents to the NCVS, 55% who reported they were a victim of a crime, said the crime was not reported to police. So, when you only look at crimes reported to police, you’re missing most crimes,” Anderson said.
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Other recent headlines include NBC News’ “Murder and other violent crime dropped across the U.S. last year, FBI data shows” and CNN’s “Did you know violent crime is down? Not if you’re watching right-wing media.” Both of these articles cited FBI data that compares 2022 to 2023, which does not include all law enforcement agencies in the United States.
In his Wall Street Journal piece, Anderson noted five reasons why he feels left-leaning news organizations and pundits emphasize FBI data.
“First, the NCVS figures are finalized statistics, not unpolished, partial-year preliminary figures. Second, the FBI switched to a new reporting system in 2021 that makes year-to-year comparisons (from before to after its change) difficult if not impossible,” he wrote.
“Third, the NCVS is a nationally representative survey, while the FBI lacks data from a relatively large number of law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, and it hasn’t had the same mix of agencies reporting data each year. Fourth, the FBI isn’t considered a principal statistical agency by the federal government, so its ability to compensate for such missing data is limited,” Anderson added. “Fifth, the NCVS captures crimes whether they are reported to the police or not.”
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has been publishing the National Crime Victimization Survey on an annual basis since 1973. It includes statistics on nonfatal violent crimes including rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault. It also includes property crimes such as burglary or trespassing and motor vehicle theft.
The most recent edition was published earlier this month.
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